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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

cell-based

Cellular Aquaculture Startup BlueNalu Unveils Cell-Based Yellowtail in Culinary Demo

Today BlueNalu, a San Diego-based startup developing seafood from fish cells through a process called cellular aquaculture, announced that it has done a culinary demo of its cultured yellowtail amberjack.

In a press release the company called the demo a “milestone” to support its plans to introduce cell-based seafood to market within the next two years. BlueNalu CEO Lou Cooperhouse noted that the company has also internally tested mahi mahi and red snapper.

Several other companies have already done taste tests of their cell-based seafood. Wild Type organized a dinner featuring its cultured salmon earlier this year. In Asia, Shiok Meats debuted dumplings containing cultured shrimp in March, and just last month Avant Meat unveiled its cell-based fish maw (edible swim bladders of fish) at the Future Food Summit in Hong Kong.

However, it seems that BlueNalu’s fish is unique in that it acts just like traditional fish in all cooking techniques, whether it’s served seared or steamed or raw. As Cooperhouse noted in the release, “we don’t believe that any other company worldwide has been able to demonstrate this level of product performance in a whole-muscle seafood product thus far.” In the tasting, the so-called “medallions” of yellowtail were prepared cooked in tacos and seafood bisque, as well as acid cured in a poké dish. Wild Type’s salmon, by contrast, can’t be cooked to high temperatures or else it falls apart.

Photo: BlueNalu

BlueNalu’s next step is to scale, scale, scale. They’ll have to move pretty quickly to meet their incredibly ambitious plans that include a goal to break ground on a facility which will produce 18 million pounds of cell-based seafood within the next five years.

While a successful culinary demo doesn’t necessarily mean that BlueNalu will be able to achieve that goal in that timeline, it’s certainly a promising first step.

Future Food: Are We Okay with Breast Milk Grown in a Lab?

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“Wait, human milk?”

I thought I’d misheard the two of the co-founders of TurtleTree Labs, a Singaporean company that creates milk from lactating mammary gland cells, as they described their product line.

But I had not. “Yep, any kind of milk,” said their CTO Max Rye. That encompasses everything from the usual suspects like cow to more niche products like sheep, goat, or even human breast milk.

In fact, TurtleTree’s first product — which they’ll be taste testing in early 2020 — will be milk made from human mammary gland cells. They chose breast milk because it will allow them to enter the market at a higher price. Right now a liter of any of their cell-based milk (any kind) costs just under $200. That’s incredibly steep compared to plant-based dairy, but on par with Prolacta, a service that pasteurizes and resells human milk to feed newborn babies in hospitals.

As a company, TurtleTree is remarkable for a few reasons. Firstly, as far as I know, it’s the first company to make cell-based milk. Perfect Day and New Culture are using a type of fermentation to create milk proteins, while plenty of others rely on plants to imitate dairy’s creaminess. TurtleTree, however, is using cellular agriculture to grow the milk directly, cutting out the middleman.

Two — they are making human milk. It’s a polarizing concept; everyone I’ve spoken to about it so far was pretty grossed out by the idea. Consumers are getting used to the idea of eating meat grown in a lab, but they might not be as open to a lab-grown alternative of something that’s typically made by humans. Especially something meant to be fed to babies.

It’s early days in the cellular agriculture field. And though I haven’t experienced it myself, I know that nursing children can be a frustrating, painful and difficult process for many women. As the idea of consuming cell-based foods becomes more accepted, I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea of cell-based baby milk becomes less polarizing, too.

If a startup tells me it’s working on human meat though? That one might be a bridge too far.

A plant-based burger from Upton’s Naturals

Put a label on it
This week the Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA) released the first standard for the labeling of plant-based meats. Basically, its goal is to create a consistent labeling protocol across the entire alternative meat industry. The standard says that alternative meat companies can use meat terms in on their labels — sausage, chicken, etc. — as long as they include appropriate qualifiers, like “vegan” or “plant-based.”

The PBFA’s new standard is clearly in response to recent legal battles meant to make it impossible for companies to use terms like “burger” or even “meat” when labeling their product, even if they make it clear that it does not, in fact, include meat.

So far, over a dozen states have passed meat labeling restriction laws. But the PBFA and others are fighting back. Just a few months ago PBFA member company Upton’s Naturals won a victory against the state of Mississippi, which was trying to regulate plant-based meat labeling language.

Clearly, the PBFA is hoping that by setting out a universal standard for alternative meat labeling will help the entire industry as they fight for their right to use basic language like “burger” and “sausage.” We’ll see if that will be enough to deter Big Meat.

Photo: Perfect Day

Big funding for animal-free meat & milk
Two startups creating animal-free products announced some major new funding this week.

First, Meatable, a Dutch cultured meat company, let fly that it had raised $10 million. A few days later Perfect Day, a startup developing animal-free dairy using genetically engineered microbes, announced a whopping $140 million Series C.

Obviously the Perfect Day funding is far more significant, at least in terms of numbers. But it also makes sense: Perfect Day has already brought its first product — flora-based ice cream — to market. Meatable has yet to publicly share a prototype.

When I spoke with Perfect Day co-founders Perumal Gandhi and Ryan Pandya about their Series C, they told me that this is just the start of a series of upcoming announcements. “We’ve got lots coming up,” Pandya said. “Q1 [of 2020] is going to have to have really juicy stuff.”

I can’t wait to find out just what that “juicy stuff” could entail (flora-based cheese, please?). In fact, I expect to see a lot more meaty (lol) funding announcements coming into the alternative protein space over the next few months, especially in emerging fields like flora- and cell-based foods. 2020 is going to be an interesting one.

Photo: Siggi’s new plant-based yogurt.

Protein ’round the web

  • Icelandic yogurt company Siggi’s launched a new plant-based line with high protein and low sugar.
  • Nutriati, a company that makes plant protein ingredients, announced that it had raised a $12.7 million Series C.
  • Beyond Beef is hitting shelves in Canada (via VegNews).
  • Apparently McDonald’s could be selling more than 250 million of its plant-based PLT’s if it expanded them into its U.S. stores (h/t RestaurantDive)
  • Motif FoodWorks is partnering with the University of Queensland to research ways to make better textures in meat alternatives.

Eat well,
Catherine

TurtleTree Labs is Creating All Kinds of Milk (Even Human Milk) in a Lab

When I first heard about TurtleTree Labs, a new self-described “clean milk” company based in Singapore, I assumed that the startup was creating milk proteins from genetically modified microbes, similar to alternative dairy companies like Perfect Day or New Culture.

Boy, was I wrong. “That’s very much not what we’re doing,” TurtleTree’s CTO Max Rye explained to me over the phone. Instead, their scientists are using cellular agriculture to grow mammary gland cells in a lab which actually lactate milk.

And by milk, we mean any kind of milk — not just cow milk. In fact, according to TurtleTree’s CEO Fengru Lin their first product will likely be human milk.

Yep, human. She said that they’ll focus on human breastmilk initially for a few reasons. One, it could sell at a much higher cost, so they could reach price parity more quickly than with, say, cow’s milk. For context, their cultured milk — any type — currently costs about $138 per liter to produce.

However, TurtleTree won’t be selling its cell-based milk directly to consumers. Instead, the company plans to license out its milk-producing technology, for which it has a provisional patent, to large dairy companies as a SaaS model.

Rye told me that since the milk is cell-based, there’s a huge amount of versatility to their product. Their scientists can play with the settings to create milk that’s lactose-free and has different cholesterol and fat levels. So, for example, they could make a healthier milk for those following strict diets, or an ultra-creamy options for gourmet chefs. 

The startup plans to have a media day in Q1 of next year to debut their first glass of milk, which will likely be human. It’ll be a while yet before they enter the market — two years, according to Lin. The startup has raised an undisclosed amount of funding and is in the midst of raising their seed round. 

TurtleTree’s decision to operate out of Singapore is a very conscious one. Not only were two of the four co-founders already based there, but the local government is very supportive of food tech initiatives. The country has a goal to produce 30 percent of its own food by 2030 (they currently import over 90 percent). As a result, the Singaporean government gives more support to startups to get new products to market more quickly. 

That could give TurtleTree an advantage against other dairy disruptors. As I mentioned at the beginning of the piece, TurtleTree isn’t the only company trying to make milk without the animal. Perfect Day or New Culture are both using microbes to create the protein building blocks of dairy — casein and whey — to create milk that’s genetically similar to the real thing. However, Rye said that TurtleTree has an advantage over these competitors because they can make milk “without having to break it down piece by piece.” Their technology is also species agnostic, meaning they can create milk of any animal without having to rebuild an entirely new process.

I understand why heading to market with cell-based human milk makes sense from a cost perspective, but I’m not sure how well it’ll be received — at least at first. People are pretty skeptical about eating lab-grown food to begin with. Developing a product that normally only comes from humans has a distinctly Soylent Green-y vibe that could be very off-putting to consumers. Especially as something to feed to their babies.

However, as cultured meat and other products hit the market and become more commonplace, maybe that perception will change.

Meatable Raises $10M to Develop Cultivated Pork Prototype

Today cultured meat startup Meatable announced it had raised an additional $10 million in seed funding. The capital came from existing investors including BlueYard Capital, as well as angel investors and the European Commission. This brings Meatable’s total funding to $13 million.

According to the press announcement, the Dutch startup will use its new capital to reach its goal of unveiling its first cultivated pork prototype in the summer of 2020.

So far 2019 has been a boom year for cell-based meat and seafood funding. Shiok Meat raised $5.3 million over two funding rounds, Future Meat secured $14 million, and Wild Type closed a $12.5 million Series A, to name a few fundraises of note.

In the growing crowd of cultured meat companies, Meatable hopes to differentiate itself with speed and versatility. Founded in 2018, the company has been developing a technology that will let it grow meat from a single cell quickly, and without the need for controversial (and expensive) Fetal Bovine Serum.

They do this by using pluripotent stem cells, which can proliferate faster than regular stem cells and are malleable, meaning they can be coaxed to turn into any type of animal cell (muscle, fat, etc). Meatable claims that with its unique technology it can make large batches of animal tissue cells in a matter of days to weeks, whereas most companies need months. The startup has an exclusive license to use their pluripotent cell-based technology, which could give them an advantage in the race to bring tasty, affordable cultured meat to market.

It seems they’re going to reach that goal faster than expected. When I spoke to Meatable’s co-founders last October they told me they were hoping to debut a prototype in three years. With a new release date of next summer, clearly things have accelerated — likely in part thanks to their substantial new funding.

Future Food: Solving The Texture Problem

This is the web version of our weekly Future Food newsletter. Subscribe to get the most important news about alternate and plant-based foods directly in your inbox!

My dad is an extremely picky eater. He won’t eat coconut, or raw tomatoes, or avocado (I know!). Ask him why he avoids these foods and he’ll give you a simple answer: texture.

Texture is a major part of the eating experience, one which can make or break a food product. That’s why one of the biggest hurdles to creating realistic meat alternatives isn’t appearance, or even flavor — it’s texture.

So how do companies make plants — or cultured animal tissue cells — mimic the complex texture of animal products, especially whole muscle cuts like chicken breast or steak? There are a few strategies out there:

3D printing
Startups like Redefine Meat and Novameat use machines to print plant-based ingredients, such as pea protein, into fibrous strands meant to replicate the complex texture of animal muscle. They could also use the same 3D printing tech with cultured animal cells, though they haven’t branched into that space yet. Though a cool concept, 3D printing is a ways away from this being an affordable, widespread solution to mimicking tricky alt-meat textures.

Mushrooms — er, mushroom roots
A more affordable and scalable way to create meat-like texture is through mycelium, or mushroom roots made through fermentation. Atlast Foods grows mycelium scaffolding on which companies can either place cultured animal cells or plants, and Prime Roots and Emergy Foods (which just came out of stealth this week!) are developing their own meat alternatives based off of the fungi. Affordable and scalable, yes — but how well does it actually imitate the chew of meat?

Gelatin
The New York Times wrote about the latest in texture innovation this week. Harvard scientists reported they had successfully grown cow and rabbit cells on a scaffold made from gelatin. Yes, the same stuff that’s in the gummy worms you’ll hand out to trick-or-treaters tonight.

When it comes to texture, gelatin has two advantages. In addition to providing a flexible physical support on which the cells can easily grow, gelatin, which is protein, melts when cooked, which could help cell-based mimic the tender texture of, say, a seared steak.

Photo: JUST.

Be it through 3D printing, gelatin, mushroom roots, legos or something else entirely, companies will have to nail the texture problem before they can hope to entice everyday consumers to switch over to alternative proteins. And it’s not just about whether the ‘meat’ cuts and chews like the real thing. As Daniel Scharff, Director of Strategy & Analytics for JUST, mentioned at SKS 2019, alternatives to traditional animal products also have to cook in a way that’s familiar to consumers. “It has to replicate the experience that they’re used to,” he said.

However, once scientists do figure out the texture issue, it could open the door to a whole new group of alternative meat products (read: really good faux steak) and entice even more consumers to sample faux meat.

Even my picky pops might get on board.

Tapping into the Impossible Foods zeitgeist

Last week DoorDash unveiled a custom filter that users can click through to see all the restaurants in their area which serve the Impossible burger.

It’s clearly a bid by the food delivery company to edge out its food delivery competition by capitalizing off of a popular product that more and more consumers are ordering to be brought directly to their doorstep. And a smart move.

But DoorDash isn’t the only one profiting off of Impossible-mania. Restaurant Brands International (RBI), which owns Burger King, Popeyes, and Tim Horton’s, released its Q3 Earnings Report this week which showed that the Impossible Whopper is driving major traffic — the strongest uptick since 2015 — to the fast-food chain.

All this to say, next time you use a DoorDash filter to order an Impossible Whopper from BK, you’re at the intersection of a few big trends. Pat yourself on the back.

Protein ’round the web

  • Diner chain Denny’s is adding Beyond Burgers to menus of all its Los Angeles locations.
  • The Awesome Burger from Sweet Earth Foods, which is owned by Nestlé, is now available at Costcos in Texas and the Midwest (h/t Vegnews).
  • Alternative protein company Shiru, which makes versatile protein that can be used in faux eggs, cheese, meat, and more, raised $3.5 million in funding, according to Business Insider.
  • Agronomics invested $500,000 in Shiok Meats, the Singaporean startup developing cultured shrimp (and other crustaceans).

That’s it from me this week! Please tell me someone is dressing up as this for Halloween tonight.

Eat well,
Catherine

Shiok Meats Nets $500K Investment from Agronomics for Cultured Shrimp

Yesterday Agronomics, a company which invests in animal product alternatives, announced that it had completed a subscription of $500,000 in the form of a convertible loan to cell-based seafood company Shiok Meats (h/t StockMarketWire). Agronomics stated that on conversion, the subscription is expected to own a roughly 2.3 percent share in the Singaporean startup. The loan will convert to shares upon completion of a Series A funding round of $10 million by Shiok Meats.

The Singaporean company raised $4.6 million in April of this year. This latest round of investment brings its total funding to $5.3 million.

Founded in 2018, Shiok Meats is developing seafood — specifically crustaceans — outside of the animal using a technology called cellular aquaculture. Its first product is cell-based shrimp. The company did the first public taste test of its crustaceans back in March, to reportedly positive reviews.

Shiok Meats is one of several companies developing cultured seafood. Wild Type is developing cell-based salmon, BlueNalu has chosen mahi-mahi as its first cultured seafood product, and Finless Foods has stated it will bring its cell-based bluefin tuna to market over the next few years.

However, Shiok Meats is unique in two ways. Firstly it’s focusing on shrimp, which is one of the most widely consumed kinds of seafood in the world (and the number one most consumed in the U.S.) They’re also one of the few cell-based meat (or seafood) companies based in Asia, despite the fact that that’s the area of the world where cultured meat will likely make its market debut.

When I spoke with Shiok Meat’s CEO Dr. Sandhya Sriram back in January, she told me that the company is still likely 3-5 years from commercializing its first product. But with an additional half a million in its pocket, the startup is edging a lot closer to that goal.

Wild Type Raises $12.5M Series A to Accelerate Production of its Cultured Salmon

Wild Type, a startup developing cultured salmon (that is, fish grown from cells outside the animal), announced today that it had raised a $12.5 million Series A funding round. The round was led by CRV with participation from Maven Ventures, Spark Capital and Root Ventures, the last two of which had previously invested in Wild Type. This would bring the total amount of funding raised by the company to $16 million.

Founded in 2016, Wild Type currently has a team of 16. We spoke with co-founders Justin Kolbeck and Aryé Elfenbein last week to learn more about how the San Francisco-based startup will leverage their funding. According to Kolbeck, who serves as CEO, their first priority is to continue improving the taste of their product and get it into “as many talented hands and palates as possible.”

Wild Type has been doing quite a few private tastings lately, culminating in a tasting in Portland, Oregon this June. The startup can currently only make minced salmon and small lox-like pieces of the fish, but hopes to work its way up to full-size filets.

Kolbeck also wants to use the new funds to scale up their cell-based fish production. He told me their goal was to be able to supply a handful of restaurants on a regular basis. This would also drive down production costs. When I spoke to him after the tasting event in Portland, Kolbeck disclosed that one of their salmon sushi rolls would cost $200. Their goal is to get it down to $5 to make it accessible to as many people as possible.

Cell-based meat and seafood companies have been attracting waves of funding lately, but Wild Type’s Series A is a whopper — especially in the cellular aquaculture space. “In terms of later stage funding for cell-based companies, it’s been more focused on poultry and meat,” said Kolbeck. “This is a Series A in the seafood space, which is interesting.” Indeed, cultured seafood companies like BlueNalu and Finless Foods have raised $4.5 million and raised $3.5 million seed rounds, respectively. Earlier this year Shiok Meats, which grows shrimp in a lab, closed a $4.6 million seed round. But Wild Type is the first cell-based seafood company to reel in such hefty funding.

Kolbeck still was hesitant to give a specific date for when they would bring their product to market. But with this new funding in hand, we’re all one step closer to having cell-based salmon sushi on our plates.

Ecovative Launches Spinoff Company Atlast Food to Create Myceliuim Scaffolding for Meat Alternatives

At the Good Food Conference today biotech company Ecovative announced it was spinning out Atlast Food Co., a new company entirely dedicated to creating mycelium scaffolding for meat alternatives.

As I wrote about Ecovative/Atlast earlier this year:

The company first developed a mycelium platform 12 years ago to use as sustainable packaging material. Then, a few years ago, they started developing a marshmallow-like mycelium foam, called “Atlast,” which could be used as scaffolding for tissue engineering. Ecovative co-founder and CEO Eben Bayer told me over the phone that they can grow the mycelium into a shape that emulates meat fibers, then infuse it with plant-based fats, flavors, and seasonings. In short: they can use it as a scaffold to grow meat.

It seems that Ecovative has realized that there’s enough potential in growing meat alternative scaffolding to merit a dedicated company. According to Andy Bass, Ecovative’s Director of Marketing, Atlast will partner with companies to help them develop bespoke whole cuts of plant-based and cell-based meat.

So far, Atlast has tested their mycelium into a scaffold for plant-based bacon. I haven’t had a chance to try it myself, but based off of the video below it actually looks pretty tasty.

Ecovative is striking while the plant-based iron is hot — and primed to grow. Most meatless meats available now have a processed texture, such as burgers, chicken nuggets or sausages. In order to take a real chunk out of the meat industry, alternative companies will have to figure out a way to make whole cuts of meat — like steak or chicken breast — out of plants. And one of the biggest challenges standing in their way is texture.

Atlast’s technology could be even more critical to cell-based meat. Thus far, the majority of companies have been able to grow meat with a “ground” texture, though cultured meat companies are experimenting with 3D printing and even spinach leaves as tools to improve texture. Even Aleph Farms, which is making cell-based steak, has only been able to make thin sheets the size of a credit card. There’s a big opportunity for someone to come in and provide a scaffolding solution, especially as cultured meat inches closer to hitting the market.

Bass wouldn’t disclose future partners but said that they would make more public sometime in 2020.

Japanese Startup Integriculture Tests Foie Gras Grown in a Lab

Foie gras is one of the most contentious animal products out there. In order to get the goose liver so fatty, farmers have to force feed the animals — a practice that makes foie gras both ethically iffy and really expensive. Some cities are even considering banning it altogether.

However, Japanese cellular agriculture startup Integriculture is developing a cultured foie gras that can be made entirely without animals and therefore without the ethical hangups. This week, the company got one step closer to its goal when it did a private taste test of its cell-based liver at the Beyond Next Ventures office in Tokyo.

Integriculture has done previous tests of its product, but according to an email from Integriculture CEO Yuki Hanyu, this version was significantly more sophisticated. He noted that previous experiments were “chicken cell liver paste,” while this new product was “actual fat-loaded duck liver cells.” It apparently tasted much better and had a cleaner flavor than earlier versions. Hanyu said that they didn’t calculate the cost of producing the cultured foie gras.

The company is also finishing development on their SpaceSalt, a powdered version of cell media (the nutrient-rich bath in which cellular meat is grown) which they’ll sell to biohackers who want to grow their own meat at home using the guide from Shojinmeat, the DIY cultured meat community which Integriculture grew out of. in the aforementioned email, Hanyu told me he hopes to start selling the SpaceSalt by the end of this year.

Integriculture is on a tight timeline to perfect its cell-based foie gras and make it in large enough quantities to sell. The startup plans to launch the cultured liver in restaurants in 2021 and roll it out in Japanese retail in 2023, assuming the government approves cell-based meat for sale. That’s not a lot of time, but this latest test seems to show that the company is at least getting closer to perfecting the product.

BlueNalu Unveils Plan for Facility to Grow Fish, Crustaceans and Mollusks, Starting with Mahi-Mahi

BlueNalu just revealed details about its plan to become the global leader in cellular aquaculture. Yesterday the San Diego-based startup, which grows seafood from cell cultures, dove deeper into its commercialization strategy for its cultured fish and also released schematics of its future large-scale food facilities.

According to a press release from the company, the new facility, which will be “a hybrid between a microbrewery and a conventional food production facility,” will be 150,000 square feet and produce a whopping 18 million pounds of seafood products per year. There, BlueNalu scientists will grow fish cells in large tanks then combine them into a variety of finished seafood products.

And when we say variety, we mean variety. “We’re creating a platform approach that will allow us to do freshwater and saltwater fin fish, and ultimately crustaceans and mollusks too,” Lou Cooperhouse, co-founder and CEO of BlueNalu, told me over the phone. They’ll initially focus on species that are overfished, difficult to farm, or contain high levels of pollutants. Finished products will be sold to restaurants, grocery stores and directly to consumers.

Their first product will be cultured mahi-mahi. According to Cooperhouse, they decided to enter the market with this fish since it’s versatile and especially difficult to farm raise. However, they’ve previously done taste tests with yellowtail amberjack, and Cooperhouse emphasized that they’re focusing more on creating a cellular aquaculture platform — not just one particular species.

It will be a while before we can sample cell-based mahi-mahi. BlueNalu’s roadmap, made up of five phases, is still in phase one: focusing on R&D for its cell-based seafood. They hope to start selling their products in two to three years, then break ground on their first facility (phase five) in five years.

The Holy Grail for any cultured animal tissue company — be it focused on beef or fish — is to make an agnostic platform to grow any type of tissue. But for now, other cellular aquaculture companies are much more heads-down on one type of seafood: shrimp for Shiok Meats, salmon for Wild Type, and tuna for Finless Foods. BlueNalu’s plan for the future is unusually broad — and ambitious.

It’s easy for companies to talk a big talk about what will happen five years down the road. And honestly, BlueNalu’s plans might be a little too aggressive to bring into action in that timeline, especially since cell-based meat and seafood have yet to hit the market. Then again, the company raised a significant $4.5 million only two months after launching publicly. Plus, as seafood prices rise and our waterways become more contaminated, I’m betting the market opportunity for cellular aquaculture products will grow. We’ll see if BlueNalu will be there to feed it.

Japanese Startup Integriculture Will Sell Cultured Foie Gras by 2021, and Teach You To Make It at Home

At SKS Japan this week, lots of speakers have been predicting what the future of food might look like: it might be cooked by robotic articulating arms, it might be carbon neutral, or it might be personalized to individuals’ specific tastes.

But the most futuristic vision of all might have come from Yuki Hanyu, CEO and founder of DIY cultured meat community Shojinmeat. He sketched out a time in which we’re all living on Mars, growing steak in bioreactors in much the same way we brew beer right now.

That reality is still a long way off. However, right now Hanyu is still working on quite a few projects pushing us towards a future in which everyone — yes, even you — can grow their own meat, and cultured meat is available in your corner supermarket.

Shojinmeat was the original enterprise, but in 2015 Hanyu spun out Integriculture, a startup creating full-stack cellular agriculture solutions. After his session at SKS Japan, Hanyu described his company’s projected timeline to me:

2019
By the end of this year Integriculture will start selling Space Salt, a dried version of cell culture media. For those who don’t nerd out on cellular agriculture, media is the liquid “food” that allows animal cells to rapidly proliferate to form meat. Space Salt is Integriculture’s (secret) proprietary blend of salt and food safe amino acids, which, when mixed with water, forms a DIY cell culture media. Hanyu wants to sell it to home enthusiasts who can use it to grow their own meat using Shojinmeat guide.

2020
While its focus is cultured meat, in 2020 Integriculture is also planning to sell its media for use in cosmetic applications, specifically as an anti-aging skincare product.

2021
In 2021, Integriculture will launch its first cell-based meat product: foie gras. Hanyu said that they decided to tackle foie gras as its first product because of its creamy texture, which means that they don’t have to emulate the texture and chew of meat. Since foie gras is already quite expensive, starting with that product will also presumably give consumers less of a sticker shock when they see its high price. Accordingly they plan to launch first in high-end restaurants in Japan.

“We’re not aiming for massive revenue at first,” Hanyu told me during SKS Japan. Instead, he’s expecting that the foie gras launch will be more of a proof of concept to show that cell-based meat is feasible and delicious. He also wants it to help establish regulatory guidelines for cultured animal products in Japan.

Which brings us back to the Space Salt. Presumably, when Integriculture starts selling its cell-based foie gras, Japanese food regulatory bodies will ask the company what’s in it in order to approve it for public consumption. At that time Hanyu and his team plan to show that the only two inputs are duck liver cells and Space Salt (plus water), the latter of which contains ingredients that are already sold on the market. He’s hoping that if they prove that duck liver and Space Salt are both already available for purchase, then by the transitive property their cell-based foie gras shouldn’t pose a problem.

If the 2021 restaurant launch goes as planned, Integriculture will start selling foie gras in supermarkets in 2023.

Photo: Integriculture

An ambitious timeline, to be sure — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The JST (Japan Science and Technology) Agency, part of the Japanese government, is investing part of its $20 million funding in Integriculture’s research for large-scale cell-based meat. The company is also working with JAXA (the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency) on its Space Food X program, which is developing closed-loop food solutions for space travelers.

That’s a lot of balls to juggle for the startup, especially one with only 13 employees and ¥300 million (USD 2.7 million) in funding. There’s also relatively little local support: despite the fact that cultured meat will likely debut in Asia, Japan is still quite light on cellular agriculture startups.

Interestingly, there’s at least one other company openly working in the cell-based meat space — and it’s a big one. Nissin Foods, the instant ramen giant, is partnering with the University of Tokyo to develop their own small cultured meat cubes to include in their freeze-dried ramen packs.

However, as they’re a large company which would require billions of tiny cell-based meat cubes — and they need to make them cheaply to keep down the cost of their product — Hanyu said that they’re likely 10 years away from actually incorporating cultured pork or chicken into the ramen packs.

Maybe then highbrow consumers will be able to have instant noodles with lab-grown foie gras.

Wild Type Debuts New Cultured Salmon in Largest Tasting of Lab-Grown Meat

Last week Wild Type, the West Coast startup growing salmon in a lab, had the first large-scale taste test of its new product.

In a Medium post, the company detailed a test dinner at Portland, Oregon’s Olympia Oyster bar, which included an assortment of cell-based salmon dishes based on “a variety of culinary traditions.” Menu items included Ceviche Verde, salmon tartare, Hawaiian poke, and spicy salmon sushi rolls, all made with the cultured fish. The dinner, which the company claims was the first to feature cell-based food so extensively, wasn’t open to the public, so there’s no indication how good the cultured fish actually tasted.

Founded in 2016, Wild Type raised a $3.5 million seed round to expand its cell-based salmon R&D in 2018. The company plans to initially release minced salmon and lox and work its way up to full-size filets.

It still has quite a few hurdles to overcome. As with most cellular agriculture (or aquaculture) companies, it can only produce relatively small pieces of lab-grown meat due to scaffolding challenges and other growth constraints.

Wild Type’s salmon can also only be served raw. If it’s heated above 212°F, it will become too flaky fall apart. According to Bloomberg the company plans to debut a new version of the salmon that can be cooked in the next few months.

Pricing is also an issue. The company hopes to sell their salmon at a competitive price to real farmed Atlantic salmon: $7 to $8 per pound. As of now, they estimate that the spicy salmon roll served at the dinner cost a whopping $200 to produce. However cellular agriculture/aquaculture companies are rapidly reducing the cost it takes to make cultured meat, mostly due to improvements in growth media, so it’s likely pricing will go down soon.

Wild Type isn’t the only company trying to get in on the seafood alternative market. Finless Foods is hoping to bring its cell-based bluefin tuna to market by the end of 2019, though likely in a very limited release. In Singapore, Shiok Meats is developing cell-based shrimp (and racking up serious funding along the way), and Avant Meats is making lab-grown fish maw in Hong Kong.

It’ll still be a while until we taste any sort of cultured meat or seafood due to high costs, low production capacity, and regulatory hurdles. Wild Type has yet to release a go-to-market date for their cell-based salmon, but some speculate it’ll be as much as 10 years from now.

However, several plant-based seafood companies are already vying for our plates. Good Catch’s plant-based tuna is now available at Whole Foods, and Ocean Hugger Foods makes alternatives to raw tuna and eel out of vegetables. These options may all be better for the environment than fishing or even growing fish cells in a lab, but at least from my experience, it’s much harder to make plants taste like fish than it is to make them taste like a juicy burger.

Regardless, we have to do something about our dwindling seafood supply. Our oceans are rapidly being depleted through overfishing and aquaculture has its own set of issues. If companies like Wild Type can produce tasty fish to relieve some of the pressure from our oceans, I’m all for it. Even if I have to wait a while to try lab-grown spicy tuna sushi for myself.